But of periapts those that took our fancy most, and of which we took care to lay in a goodly store for our own use, were certain necklaces or amulets from which were suspended carnelian arrowheads. Of these there was a regular traffic, and we saw large bunches of them hung up for sale in the larger bezestan; on enquiring their use, the merchant who sold them informed me that they were a most valuable and potent charm against skin diseases—in an Oriental city not an unimportant consideration—and insinuated, as a minor attraction, that if I wore them I need never be afraid of warts. I have seen exactly similar charms in Bulgaria, and others from Arabia, which are worn by the Arabs ‘as good for the blood’—so that their cutaneous virtues are widely appreciated. The Serajevan merchant said that they were imported from India—and, indeed, the Ganges may almost be said to have flowed into the Save! But the miniature arrowheads of these amulets command as high an interest from their form as from their Indian origin; and the sanctity with which superstition has invested what was once the everyday weapon of mankind, is one of the many proofs of the antiquity of that Stone Age which preceded the period when Bronze was the only metal known to mankind, and, at a remoter distance, this blessed Age of Iron. [Illustration: Arrowhead Charms.] We heard of other charms suspended round horses’ necks, though I am not in a position to describe any of these. But perhaps the most curious amulets were those worn by children against the Evil Eye. Here are some that we succeeded in carrying off. Figures 1, 2, 3, 4, are of lead, severally representing a hare, a fish, a crested serpent, a tortoise. No. 5 is the claw of an eagle or some kind of bird, and No. 7 the horns of a stag beetle; both of these are mounted in tin sockets. No. 6 is a rude face carved in jet. These are fixed on the child’s fez, or elsewhere about the person, and the object served is to avert the first stroke, or as the Italians say the _Gettatura_ of the Cattiv’ Occhio; this first stroke being alone considered fatal. It is for this reason that the amulets against its malign influence are usually of bizarre forms, in order to attract the _Gettatura_ to themselves. But the natural objects—notably the animals, representations of which are used for this purpose here—are extremely interesting, inasmuch as they very strongly suggest a continuity with the amulets against the Evil Eye in use in classic times. Thus, on ancient gems the eye is seen surrounded by a lion, a hare, a dog, a scorpion, a stag and a serpent.[265] There is, besides, a well-known class of Roman brooches in the form of fishes, the animals mentioned above, and others, which may, one would think, with great propriety be looked on as nothing but amulets of the same kind, and many of which bear a striking resemblance to these Bosnian charms. Nor is this superstition, any more than the others, at all confined to